I think it's time to severely limit absentee ballot voting

[SoCalDem]

to:

people in a care facility (long term rehab center/nursing home)

people with a valid medical reason (accompanied by a real note from a doctor..and then verified by registrar)

military

That should be IT...

The military ballots should be collected at the base and then ALL submitted so that they arrive BEFORE election day.

In fact ALL absentee ballots should be MAILED and delivered by USPS BEFORE election day.

Instead of anyone asking for and getting an absentee ballot...ALL states should have EARLY voting for the entire month of OCTOBER (or perhaps a different month if it's a special election in a different month)

Republicans have always led in absentee balloting (don't want to rub shoulders with election day riff-raff?)

If dems who now are in charge anywhere do not fix this problem, we truly are doomed to second class citizenship for a long time.

Republicans in charge exploit any and every opportunity to limit voters to only their favorites.

They purge indiscriminately, they move polling places, they make up phony rules for IDs, they intimidate voters, they lie about "voter fraud" when the real thing is GOP ELECTION FRAUD, they gerrymander relentlessly, they "accidentally" put wrong dates/times/locations ...and any other devious scheme they can come up with..

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. We should be making it easier to vote, not harder.

Root out the fraud but not by making it harder to vote.

[marble falls]

2. That is exactly my thought. And you said it better than I would have.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Re: absentee voting I can certainly see why some working guy or gal

Re: absentee voting I can certainly see why some working guy or gal doesn't want to take three hours out of their day to vote. Making it harder to vote is only going to help those with lots of free time, like, I don't know, retirees.

[marble falls]

7. A lot of employers do everything to make it hard for their employees to vote.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. My boss was a Repug and a jerk in a lot of ways...

My boss was a Repug and a jerk in a lot of ways but to his eternal credit he urged us to vote even though he knew our votes were more than cancelling out his.

[marble falls]

37. Thats the way it used to be. Democrats and Republicans used to work together ...

on common issues and the compromise was always about a Republican or Democratic solution.

Nixon and Teddy Kennedy worked together for a national healthcare program and Republicans refused to co-operate with Kennedy.

National Healthcare isn't a Democratic or Republican issue. Its a conservative/liberal issue. How healthcare would be administered is a Democratic/Republican issue. President Obama went out of his way to make ADA a program Republicans could support and they acted like asses.

Back in the day we'd work together. Now all they want from us is acquiescence which all they think constitutes bipartisanship. I miss the old days. Bill Clinton was twice the bipartisan Reagan ever was.

[DBoon]

36. Even if the law requires time off for voting

Employers have a way of getting back at employees who take off "too much time". Most corporations go through regular restructuring and layoffs. You can't prove you were chosen for a layoff because you took time off.

[Bettie]

18. My DH gets an absentee ballot every year

as he is often called out of town for his job and gone on election day. His schedule isn't really set so much as almost entirely random.

[SoCalDem]

40. Which is WHY we need a whole MONTH of early voting

[EffieBlack]

26. Exactly!

[wryter2000]

30. Amen

Plus, absentee ballots are on paper and can be counted and recounted.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. That would be step 2.

Step 1 would be to put us all on a tamper-proof voting booth that provides a paper trail.

In Florida, the reason why we were encouraged to start using absentee ballots was to get around the electronic only booths.

[haele]

5. Government employees or corporate employees who are working overseas should be able to vote.

I've had to vote absentee at least twice in my life as a contractor working three - four months on a job across country where I wouldn't be back at my home of record until December or January.
Denying people a vote just because they have to make a living or if they're going to be out of town taking care of a sick relative is evil, whether it's by "accidental purge" or because one is trying to reduce the amount of election fraud by getting rid of the temptation of low-hanging fruit by crooked politicians...

The problem is with the cheating gangsters posing as "representatives" in red districts, not the voters who want to vote, but might not be able to within a certain amount of time.

Haele

[hlthe2b]

6. So, let's see. Colorado has gone to all mail-in ballots (though there are same day polling spots)

and our turn out was second highest in the country (61.9%) behind Minnesota (64.3%) with minimal problems:
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/politics/colorado-had-nation-s-second-highest-voter-turnout-rate-in-2018-midterm-election. One can consider this "absentee ballots" for all and CO joins OR and WA in using this system.


It isn't absentee ballots that are the issue, but overt corruption in the system.

[jpljr77]

8. Kids off at college? People who travel extensively for business? etc.

What about them?

Don't let an incompetent and desperate Republican in North Carolina cause you to advocate for making it HARDER for people to vote.

Come on. Lots of people live non-sedentary lifestyles and absentee balloting ensures their votes are counted.

[csziggy]

9. I completely disagree - what Democrats need to do is to educate voters

If the voters in North Carolina had known the laws regarding their absentee ballots the scammers would not have been able to collect and possibly destroy so many ballots. Same for voters who are fooled by mailings from Republicans giving the wrong dates and locations for voting.

If voters were well educated about this most important duty of every American citizen the Republicans - or any other group interested in depressing or stealing votes - would not be able to get away with these crimes.

Every voter should know the laws about using the methods of voting available to them. I have not voted absentee in fifty years but I know better than to give my absentee ballot to anyone else, especially an unsealed, unsigned absentee ballot that is not complete. Apparently North Carolina voters are not universally aware that they should not do that if their vote is to count.

Local Democratic organizations should work with groups such as their local election officials, the League of Women Voters, the ACLU, and any other group interested in getting all citizens to vote. We should be teaching people how to vote, how to make sure their votes will be counted, and how to counter efforts to suppress and block voting.

Oregon has shown that an all mailing ballot program can work and can increase the percentage of voting. It is not the method that is at fault, it is the possibly planned ignorance about the method and the criminals taking advantage of that ignorance that is at fault.

[Delmette2.0]

20. Excellent response.

Many of us need a course in Civics.

[2naSalit]

21. +1!

[pecosbob]

10. We just need to start keeping records of abentee ballot requests

to document who is requesting them.

[LisaL]

25. You don't think it's already done?

Really?

[pecosbob]

27. I really don't know...since the States get to control everything about the process

I would imagine there are different procedures and different laws in every state. For all I know they may use dead or non existent voters...they routinely mess around with resistration in many states. Republicans are multi-level in their corruption. I think everything should have a paper trail.

[crazycatlady]

35. that is already done

It can be obtained from the county parties through FOIA.

In addition, in VAN (voter file software Democratic campaigns use), if a voter votes absentee, it is noted on their voting record (A instead of Y).

[GoneOffShore]

12. Would you also exclude those of us who live abroad?

There are over 9 million of us.
In the 2016 election less than 7% voted, but that's as much because it's often extremely difficult to register and vote from abroad. It's getting somewhat easier, but let's not put more barriers up.

[Retrograde]

13. I respectfully disagree

Going by your id, you should be familiar with California's election process. We went to vote-by-mail on request early this century (prior to that anyone could request a mail-in ballot on a per-election basis). We seem to accomplish this without a lot of the problems that come up elsewhere, even though we have the largest voting population. Maybe it has something to do with having Democrats in charge.

We've had early voting as far back as the late 1970s when I moved here - but you had to go down to the county building during business hours. That's fine if you live nearby and can get the time off to do it. It's only recently that we've had limited early voting hours in other places in my county - and then only the weekend or two before the election. Extending early voting sounds good in theory, but in practice there are a load of logistical issues to solve.

Santa Clara county seems to have vote by mail under control. The ballots are sent out when they're supposed to go out, there's a way of tracking whether they've been returned and have been accepted, the county registrar's office responds promptly when problems do come up (I once did not receive my ballot in the mail. After a few weeks, I emailed them, explained the problem, and got a substitute along with instructions on what to do if the original ever showed up). The last two election cycles the county even paid the postage! And this is a county with close to a million registered voters.

No, it's not the idea of mail-in voting that's bad - it's the way it's being implemented in certain GOP-run areas. The only drawback I see is that it does take more time to verify and count all the ballots - but isn't counting every valid vote what we want?

[leftynyc]

14. So I can NEVER go on vacation in

early November?

[TreasonousBastard]

15. In NY it's been restricted for a while-- only certain excuses are valid for absentee ballots...

and there is a large effort to reverse that, since it seems to reduce voter activity. Polls are usually pretty close to home, but voters aren't always close to home on election day. Especially working voters, or those with busy schedules-- the ones you want voting more.

How they deal with the increased workload to tally those ballots is another question.

[onenote]

24. In Virginia, early in-person voting is subject to the same limitations as absentee

You're supposed to have a valid reason (as outlined in the rules governing absentee voting) for not being able to make it to the polls on election day, whether you send in your absentee ballot by mail or vote in person during the early voting period.

Its pretty absurd since no one checks and all you have to do is say you think you'll be out of the area or tied up with work and you're eligible.

[wasupaloopa]

16. No. Here in CA we use mail ballots for much

of our voting.

We don’t have the trouble NC has because repub don’t run things here.

[fierywoman]

17. No. Here in WA it's all by mail. And you can check to see your ballot has been received.

Very civilized.
Collecting absentee ballots by rogue forces should be abolished.

[Liberal Veteran]

39. As a former Washingtonian...I agree with you.

Vote by mail was great.

[Charlotte Little]

19. Fix the fraud is the way to go

Absentee ballot voting is crucial for many reasons and shouldn't be limited or done away with, IMO.

But I do think that election days (for POTUS & Midterms) should be declared national holidays.

[mcar]

22. The big push among Democrats is for more vote by mail

It increases the chances of more people voting. We need to make sure those ballots are counted, not eliminate the option.

[LisaL]

28. There are a lot of issues with vote by mail.

Signature verification, potential for fraud.
But I agree, we should make sure the votes are counted, not eliminate this option.

[LisaL]

23. You user name suggests you are from California.

Considering a lot of Californians vote by mail, that's a strange suggestion.

[jberryhill]

31. Some people don't get that the voting rules are different in every state

[jberryhill]

29. Please specify which state you are talking about

Different states have different rules. Some states restrict absentee ballots to specific reasons, others don't.

So, which "we" are you talking about? California? What?

[jberryhill]

32. I like the way you want to charge handicapped people a poll tax

That's really cute.

They need to pay for a doctor's visit each election?

[Awsi Dooger]

33. We need to stop pretending that late phone banking is the solution to everything

Nothing wrong with absentee voting as long as voters are contacted frequently and educated regarding every method and potential obstacle. Likewise with our voting specialists in regard to making sure ballot designs are simple, and not merely an unintentional form of suppression.

I have no idea how the NFL can become a year long obsession with the draft and OTAs, etc., but voting is crammed into two months in the fall every two years, with the same familiar problems and frequent new ones.

We are already losing ground in Florida regarding 2020. As I mentioned to a poster via PM a few days ago, I was polishing my car last week near dusk and a gray car stopped in my swale. A young attractive woman got out. I assumed she wanted directions or was mistaking me for someone else. Nope, she was a Republican canvasser. I gave her my standard line that I would never vote for a Republican in my life, but she was not deterred. She walked to my mailbox and dumped the material in there. Then I saw her stop 4 houses down the block and talk to the guy who was outside working on his lawn.

That is what the GOP is doing in Florida. It is not theft. We are being outworked with year long emphasis.

[northoftheborder]

34. Many changes needed to voting laws.

Forcing people to vote in person on a weekday is unreasonable. Make it a national holiday. Or schedule it on a weekend day. Early voting is great idea, but it needs to be enforced.

[Liberal Veteran]

38. Actually, we should have a voting week. The national holiday is good in theory, but...

...generally most people in lower income jobs do not get a holiday. Fast food, department stores, travel, gas stations, health care workers, and a host of other jobs rarely get holidays off work. Plus, many people who do get national holiday's off would just take Monday off and go on a four day weekend.

Holidays just don't mean the same thing they used to as evidenced by the number of "Black Friday" sales starting on Thursday evenings. The same is true about a weekend. While a lot of people have weekends off, a huge number of people do not (something around 35 percent of the workforce....a not insignificant number).

A voting week, however, ensures that there is ample time between hectic work schedules and unforeseen circumstances for the vast majority of people to get to the polls.